The club has won three games, but all against low-ranked opposition and it has felt defeat at the hands of top-five sides Clarence, Glenorchy and the Western Storm.

Last weekend's 88-point loss to third-placed North Launceston saw Lauderdale slip to sixth and raised a huge question mark over its credentials as a premiership contender.

Winter said this weekend's hit- out against Burnie was a line-in- the-sand match and his men would be doing everything in their power to obtain the four points.

"We're treating it as a mini- final, there's no doubt about that," Winter said.

"Our contested footy last week was really poor and that's something we've prided ourselves on over the journey. We really want to play some strong contested footy and win the ball in close.

"We've played some up and down footy to date, and we know that our season is hanging on these three tough weeks before the bye. If we don't get back on track starting this weekend, we may struggle."

Winter said he was never fooled by the Dockers' (3-4) early season form slump and knew they had the cattle to turn their fortunes around.

"I think we were all pretty happy that they were losing games early in the year, but we knew they were a quality team and that they were going to right the ship at some stage," he said.

"We just didn't want them to turn it around before we got to them."

Winter, an ex-Burnie coach from the late 1990s, said the Bombers could be buoyed by the return of up to seven players for the must- win encounter, including captain Matthew Smith, and talls Alex Hill and Ben Halton.